If Plants Could Talk...

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Charles Burchfield, Sultry Moon, watercolor, 1959

Burchfield Penney Art Center's Facebook page is worth following. Every morning without fail they post a new painting by Charles Burchfield along with a selection of his writing from his journals. Seeing what they are offering up is one of the high points of my mornings.

Sultry Moon above was their pick this morning. It was new to me and as I looked at it the phrase "If plants could talk..." went through my mind. Burchfield is a very different kind of landscape painter than I am, but one thing I admire in his work is how remarkably animated his forms are. Much of the energy he injects into his paintings is built out of his mastery of brushstrokes. This guy knew what he was doing. 

Just to say two things about his mark-making:

-You never know ahead of time what direction his brushstrokes are going to take as he paints his forms. Always he's surprising us. Unconsciously that makes us want to keep looking.

-He beautifully orchestrates the intensity of his marks. In Sultry Moon, compare the high-contrast staccato brushstrokes in the foreground plants (are they dandelions?) and the trees with the ever-so-softly gradated strokes that populate the empty sky. His judgment about when to hit it hard or when to softly whisper his ideas is just terrific. 




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